Field of the Disclosure
The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to introduction of powered relay for device-to-device (D2D) communication.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE). A wireless multiple-access communication system may also, or alternatively, support D2D communication between communication devices (e.g., between UEs). D2D communications may involve wireless communications directly between communication devices (e.g., directly between UEs, without the communications passing through one or more base stations).
D2D communications may sometimes be relayed through one or more intermediary communication devices (e.g., through one or more relays). A relay may take the form of a dedicated relay device or be part of another device, such as a base station or UE. A relay may be an idle mobile device that happens to be in the vicinity of the D2D link. Conserving battery power for the relay may be desired, and may result in two distinct time periods, a relay selection period and a data communication period. The two time periods may be periodic and repeat one after another. The time used for the relay selection period may be short to reduce the overhead associated with determining relay candidates. Further, to reduce power consumption at the relay, the relay selection period may occur infrequently. However, it may be desired to establish a method of communication with a relay which does not need to adhere to the same power requirements as other relays.